


your part in the play (for today)

by bubblebangbaby



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Character Death, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, i really don't know how to tag this, the one where all the protags die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 16:06:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14814539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubblebangbaby/pseuds/bubblebangbaby
Summary: How do you go through with what has to be done when you know you won't live to see tomorrow?Written for the Dreamwidth kinkmeme:Akira/Ryuji or Akira/Yusuke - AU - being a Wild Card means making a sacrifice...So at the end of Persona 3, Minato uses his (Final Form)Persona’s major attack to seal Nyx, the villain. It turns him into a seal to make sure Nyx stays there but he dies in the real world.I’ve read a story where Yu/Souji dies after using his (Final Form)Persona’s major attack to defeat 4’s true villain.So.... now it’s Akira’s turn. Bonus if Akira is aware that that’s what needs to happen to save the world but doesn’t tell the others. They clue in during the final battle, even though they can’t stop him though they definitely try. Make me cry anons!!





	your part in the play (for today)

**Author's Note:**

> It's not a case of aiming to please  
> You know you're always crying  
> It's just your part  
> In the play for today
> 
> [the cure, "play for today"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FksEGDY2Z_o)

This is Igor, then. The real Igor, not the impostor he’s been dealing with all this time. The same face, but eyes that pierce instead of burn. In his strange, reedy little voice, he explains. His friends are here and only he can free them. The god of control has his hooks into the world’s heart, unless they cut them away. Time is short. Beside Igor, Lavenza is a stone, hardly blinking, the sadness in her eyes weighing on him heavier with every passing second. When Igor finishes his speech, she finally moves, turns that heavy gaze onto him instead.

“Master. We must tell him. He cannot go into this blind as the others did.” Igor makes a thoughtful noise that’s more bird than human. He nods at her gravely, and she turns back to Akira.

“Trickster. There is something you must know.” He tilts his head at her, eyes narrowed in impatience, but says nothing. If time is so short, why is she keeping him from going after his team? “You have not been the first visitor to this room, nor the first Fool.”

“Hn... You mean Akechi?” he asks quietly. There’s a pain he’d hoped he wouldn’t have to look directly at just yet.

“No. Others like you. Others who filled the compendium and led their closest companions into battle, as you do. You must know this, trickster, because these others are dead.” He stares at her, baffled.

“What…?”

“They too fought a sickness in the soul of humanity. And sacrificed their lives in doing so. I believe this will be required of you as well. You will strike the final blow against the false god, Trickster. And then you will die.” He’s as still as she is now, staring flatly back at her. The words start to sink into his consciousness in disjointed pieces. Have his hands been numb this whole time? Was it always this cold in the velvet room?

“You seem awfully sure of that.” He meant to be sarcastic, but the words come out as flat and cold as his body feels.

“Yes. I will show you.” She produces a glowing orb and beckons him to look into it. He sees a vision of a boy about his age, tall and striking in his stony determination. He summons a persona. Then another. And another. And more, coming in a stream, gods and demons and monsters channeled through his own body until they form something new, something that can kill a god. His body falls to the ground, empty. The vision fades and and another replaces it, this time of another boy, someone who looks much younger, except for his eyes. His hair falls in his face as he stands, bleeding but determined, sealing shut the gate to to something hellish and otherworldly with his own soul as its chain. The sun is rising, shining gold and sweet; and under its gaze, his body is still, the ghost of a smile on his face.

There’s a crawling feeling in Akira’s stomach. another vision of death flashes by, another young man like himself falling lifeless, and another. The numbness in his body seems to be turning to helium. He’s fixated on the orb, afraid to look away, afraid any movement might send him collapsing to the floor. “And if I refuse?”

A grimace passes over Lavenza’s face, quick and subtle as a passing breeze, before it settles back into its sorrowful neutrality. “There is no way out but through, Trickster. If you turn back now or go on alone, your friends will remain trapped. My Master is too weak to free them before they succumb. If you continue onward, but refuse to take up the killing blow, you will all die. And it will be quite in vain.”

The only way out is through.

Walking away means letting them die cold and alone. His team, his friends, his _family_.

The only way out is through.

Stopping short means letting them die in battle, bloody and desperate and pointless.

Each of them, with their own unique thread anchored deep in his heart. Makoto’s unstoppable determination, Haru’s sweet kindness, Yusuke’s limitless passion. Futaba and Ann, truer sisters than his own blood could ever be. And Ryuji. _Ryuji._

He’s not swaying on his feet any more.

The only way out is through.

“I’ll make the trade.”

Lavenza looks suddenly haunted, quiet sadness turning to desperate grief. She squeezes her hands together and nods. “The others would have said the same, I am told. I will not try to convince you otherwise.”

Akira nods back, hoping she can’t see him trembling. “Thank you. For telling me. I’ll make the most of this.”

She lowers her head. Igor nods slowly and solemnly. “Goodbye, Trickster.”

There’s nothing more he can say. He turns on his heel and is gone.

The paths reach out before him on either side. Somewhere in this labyrinth are the people he loves more than anything he’s ever known. _I’m going to die._ It’s not the first time the thought’s crossed his mind. Not the first time he’s thought of walking right into it, even. But this time, it’s real. It’s real, and it’s hovering right before him, and there’s no escaping it, no walking away or changing his mind. He can’t get the visions that Lavenza showed him out of his head. The relieved, exhausted smile on the sad-eyed boy’s lips. The empty, blank grey eyes of the tall boy, falling backwards like a felled tree, dead before he hits the ground. _I’m going to die. I’m going to die i’mgoingtodiei’mgoingtodiei’mgoingtodie--oh god…_

He realizes he’s hit the floor, slumped against the wall, shaking like he might fly apart. He rips away his mask, buries his face in his hands, and sobs helplessly, alone in the cold stone hallway.

Time doesn’t really pass normally in the velvet room. It feels like he’s been lying on the cold stone for hours, days even. Maybe it’s only been a few minutes. Either way, he’s exhausted and shaky, his eyes swollen closed, burning and itching from the dried tears, his mouth dry and sticky. There are no tears left in him now. He puts his mask back on and picks a direction to walk in.

_There’s no way out but through._

Ryuji is the first one he finds, crouched in a cramped cell with his head hanging low, staring blankly at the floor. Of course it would be him. There’s something small and taut in his chest screaming without sound, to see him like this, and to know what’s coming. Akira kneels in front of the bars, reaching for him.

_Ryuji, pinned to the wall in Kamoshida’s palace, screaming at him to run, to save himself._

_Ryuji, tears streaming as he snarls out his righteous fury at hearing Akira’s story. Ryuji, the first person who’d actually said it was wrong instead of just telling him to shut up and keep his head down. That same fury leaping up for Ann, for Yusuke, for Futaba, for every one of them who’d been wronged._

_Ryuji, leaping in to take the hits meant for him, grinning through the blood and slapping Akira on the shoulder while they healed him afterward._

“ _Psht, don’t worry about me, man. I’m good at takin’ hits.”_

_Ryuji, grabbing him round the waist, and pulling him close his hands shaking but his eyes determined, unshakable. The way he fell back against the little bed in the attic after their first kiss, laughing so hard he could barely breathe, like a cork had popped inside him and joy came bubbling out. Laughing until Akira had to climb onto him and kiss him again, and then again,_ _trying desperately to taste that joy for himself._

_Ryuji, laughing that same joyous laugh and pulling him close as he limped through the door to Leblanc, broken and dazed and shaking but alive,_ _**alive** _ _. And how there wasn’t a single trace of fear or doubt in his eyes as they related the story, not a single worry that that he’d come back anything but whole and healthy and ready to take the fight to the bastards one last time. The way he’d held him so carefully and cried for him again, when they were finally alone that night and he realized, really realized, that Akira was alive and in one piece, but not whole. Not the same._

_Ryuji, winking proudly as he swung himself up the railing of the ship and ran, fast as lightning, bold as love, back into the fray to drop the lifeboat. And so close, so close to making it back to them, before the explosion swallowed him up._ _Only to come strolling back up to them, still smiling, still cracking jokes, baffled by why anyone would be so worried about him. He took the hit, that’s all._

_Ryuji, with a split lip and bruised cheek, grinning at him so bright it hurt to look at._ “ _It’s how I feel when I’m with you. I feel free. You know…?” Akira knows. Gods, he knows. He tucks his hand in his, laces their fingers together and tries to smile without letting his excitement show too much. Don’t want to scare him off. Don’t want to let him know how his heart feels like it might crash through his chest and go flying away._

_“Yeah. I do know.”_

“Yo,” he says finally, voice flat and empty as his eyes but still trying to smile. “You’re alive...”

“Yeah…I am.” Akira tries to smile too, but it feels like cracking porcelain. He is alive.

For now.

For today.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still waffling on whether or not to continue this on up through the end of the final battle... hmm... 
> 
> Either way, if I hurt your feelings, yell at me on [tumblr](bubblebangbaby.tumblr.com).


End file.
